Arizona court rules DACA students ineligible for in-state tuition
Published Jun 23, 2017 6:00am
Updated Jun 24, 2017 12:52am
By Eddie Celaya
In a blow to undocumented students, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival students — also known as DREAMers — do not have legal status in the state and therefore are ineligible to receive in-state tuition rates.
For Pima Community College student Erendida (who asked her last name be withheld), the ruling could have dire consequences for her education.
“As soon as I heard about it, I started to cry,” she said through tears.
As a 19-year-old undocumented immigrant, the ruling will have profound financial ramifications. Erendida is heartbroken over the decision.
“I already can’t afford a full schedule,” she said. “This just makes me getting my education last so much longer.”
Brought to Arizona by her parents at the age of 3, Erendida has a unique window into immigration policy and its effects.
“My younger sisters were both born here, so they are eligible for everything as citizens,” she said.
An Arizona Board of Regents survey in December 2016 found that 45 DACA students attend the UA. Associated Students of the University of Arizona President Matt Lubisich estimated a higher number, perhaps between 60 and 70.
Lubisich said he was taken aback by the ruling.
“Obviously it’s a huge disappointment," he said. "I’ve been working with DACA students for the last half-semester. This is not the outcome we wanted.”
The appeals court overturned a 2015 ruling by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Arthur Anderson, which determined that DACA recipients were lawfully present in the U.S. and therefore qualified for in-state tuition.
In the appeals court ruling, Judge Kenton Jones disagreed, determining that DREAMers were not conferred legal status in the state of Arizona. As a result, Jones overturned Anderson's decision.
“They are more aptly described as beneficiaries of an executive branch policy designed to forego deportation of those who lacked unlawful intent in entering the country,” Jones wrote in the court's decision. Because of this reversal, DACA students can’t qualify for in-state tuition.
The 2015 case was the result of then-Attorney General Tom Horne suing Maricopa County Community College District after its board of governors voted to allow DACA recipients to receive in-state tuition.
That MCCCD vote came after President Obama signed the executive order in 2012 creating DACA. Under DACA, some children of undocumented migrants qualify to receive work permits and, in some states such as Arizona, driver’s licenses.
Technically, the appeals court ruling affects only MCCCD colleges. However, all three state universities could be affected. The Arizona Board of Regents, which determines tuition rates, ruled DACA students eligible to receive in-state tuition in 2015.
As such, UA leadership does not yet have an official statement in response to the new ruling.
Eileen Klein, Regents president, released a statement in response: “If [Tuesday’s] decision stands, DACA students will no longer qualify for in-state tuition at Arizona’s public universities.”
If that is the case, Lubisich isn’t happy about it.
“Some of these students have been here basically their whole lives,” he said. “It just doesn’t make any sense to punish them.”
ASUA will continue to be a resource for all students, including the undocumented, according to Lubisich.
“We are going to keep fighting for them,” he said. “They are students like anyone else, and we will fight this fight together,” he said.
Lubisich noted ASUA is currently putting students affected by the ruling in contact with the Immigration Resource Center and private scholarship services.
While Lubisich can understand some people believe DACA students take spots from local students, he doesn’t subscribe to that interpretation.
“Everyone is entitled to their opinion,” he said, “but I don’t think of it as them taking someone’s spot.” Instead, Lubisich condemned the decision, saying it “deprives these students of an education; that’s not something we want to be doing.”
Despite the ruling, Erendida plans to continue going to school.
Erendida wasn’t too worried about the current political climate, but Tuesday’s ruling changed that.
“I felt like the government had our back for a second,” she said. “Now it’s the opposite.”
http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/artic...-state-tuition
No In-State Tuition for Arizona DREAMers, Court Rules
by LANA SHADWICK
24 Jun 2017
Phoenix, AZ
An appellate court in Arizona ruled that DREAMers cannot receive in-state tuition. Each state can determine whether it can give these tax-supported benefits, the court held.
Under the ruling, illegal immigrants that have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status may not pay the in-state tuition rate.
“The decision is key because in-state tuition is yet another benefit that acts as a magnet for illegal aliens choosing to make the reckless and irresponsible decision to bring their children illegally across our sovereign borders,” Immigration Reform Law Institute’s (IRLI) executive director and general counsel, Dale Wilcox told Breitbart Texas.
Arizona voters passed Proposition 300 (“Prop 300”) in November 2006 which incorporated federal law to prohibit these postsecondary education benefits to non-qualified aliens who are residents of the state.
While the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) passed by Congress in 1996 generally allows the states to determine what public benefits are available for illegal immigrants, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) “does not allow any state to provide non-qualified aliens with postsecondary education benefits based upon their residence within the state.”
The appellate court noted that the Obama Administration decided to defer deportation of illegal aliens who entered the country as children – the Deferred Action Against Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. One of the defendants in the lawsuit, the Maricopa County Community College District Board, began accepting employment authorization documents (EADs) issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as evidence that they qualified for residence-based, in-state tuition.
“The decision is certainly a victory for those Americans who appreciate and understand what a law-and-order society really looks like,” the general counsel for IRLI told Breitbart Texas.
Wilcox added, “Disturbingly, there have been several courts that have attempted to codify DACA-recipients as somehow being a lawful and benefits-eligibility class of persons, much like citizens and legal residents. But this is absolutely not the case when one looks honestly at our democratically-enacted laws.”
“DACA-recipients are illegal aliens, and they are still absolutely removable under the law,” the immigration expert and lawyer said.
The vice president of the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition, Korina Iribe, is one of the approximately 28,000 DACA recipients in Arizona, KJZZ reported.
She told Maricopa Community Colleges’ KJZZ, “It’s a road block.”
“I know that we’re going to continue to band together and fight to make sure that we continue to have in-state tuition,” she stated.
A spokesman for the college district was reported to release a statement saying, “The Maricopa County Community College District is built on a foundation of providing access to higher education for diverse students and communities, and we continue to be committed to that mission.”
Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One’s Presiding Judge Kenton D. Jones wrote the majority opinion. It reversed the opinion of the lower Superior Court in Maricopa County. Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich appealed the trial court’s orders denying the State’s motion for judgment on the pleadings and granting summary judgment in favor of the college district.
The Supreme Court of Arizona is the next higher appellate court and the college district and other plaintiffs can appeal to that court.
After the ruling, @OneArizona, a non-partisan coalition of 19 organizations “dedicated to Latino voter registration, immigration, economic justice and education,” tweeted, “We have been brave before and we will be brave again and again.”
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/...e-court-rules/
